Good can come from Boston chief's comments

Boston's new police chief, the first person of color to assume that position, exposed that character flaw in a recent post on his personal Facebook page, when he took the American Civil Liberties Union to task.

The immediate reason for his ire leveled against the ACLU, which perceives itself the legal shield for vulnerable groups against the overwhelming power of establishment, came as a reaction to a lawsuit it filed earlier this month that accused Boston police officers of unfairly labeling Central American teenagers as gang members, thus making them more likely to be deported.

The suit seeks to force Boston police to release details about the department's practice of identifying young men and teenagers as gang members and making the information available to federal immigration officials.

That suit may have been the spark, but the Gross' smoldering frustration with this group's goals and tactics no doubt represents a cumulative result of his experiences during the 33 years he's served as a Boston cop. It's a common reaction among police officers, many of whom see the ACLU as an adversary, never an ally, in their effort to protect the law-abiding citizens under their charge.

Gross, in defending his right under the Constitution to express his personal opinion, surely realized the sensitive nerve his comments would expose on both sides of this subject.

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But as a black man well aware of the inequities of race, his perspective on this claim of racial profiling can't be dismissed simply as a police official's knee-jerk response to criticism.

It's been reported that previous Boston police chiefs rarely took issue publicly with the ACLU.

But that's not always been the case. Gross' predecessor and former boss, Police Superintendent William Evans, took vehement exception to a Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruling in 2016 that threw out a Boston man's gun conviction, by reasoning that an African American's refusal of a police officer's request for questioning shouldn't be interpreted as an admission of guilt, but instead a reaction to the "recurring indignity of being racially profiled."

A racial profiling study done by the American Civil Liberties Union reportedly provided the basis for that broad-brush conclusion. At the time, Evans told The Boston Globe: "I'm troubled, basically, that this decision relied on a biased report by the ACLU."

Gross sees the ACLU as a faceless, persistent impediment to public safety. He suggested in his post that if some of those high-minded lawyers walked in police officers' shoes for a while -- and experienced the stress and heartbreak that comes with the territory -- they might think twice about filing lawsuits that hamper efforts to stem gang violence.

Ironically, it's those supposed "profiled" minorities who these gangs prey on that police are trying to protect.

Gross' comments shouldn't be dismissed as just a public official's personal Facebook rant. It should serve as a basis for constructive criticism to the benefit of both law enforcement and the ACLU.

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